Ostriches

This is a guest post by Michael Meggison. Interested in contributing your voice to BeDeviant.com? Find the details here.

He was a man about to grab the next rung on success’ ladder but it looked like the ladder had teeth. When he rushed into the Road Show Video, it was me behind the counter.

Could I please help him?

It was hard to catch what all he was saying.

His wife and their four-year-old little girl; I-80; Was it on the news yet?

Life flight.  Iowa City.

He’d lost their ATM card.  Three hours away.

He’d run out of gas on his way to get across the state to get to them.

Could I please help him?

I could feel the shock he was in–like the blizzard slaps on our way home from our own Iowa City bad news.

No bone marrow transplant would take.

Pop and I passed my flask back and forth—staring out into the fat white missiles coming straight for us, momma cracking not funny jokes in the back.

This would be her last year, the man they said should know said.

(She beat him by one month to the day

We were right next to the Kelly’s Texaco on 63rd Street south of Grand.

I could see what I guessed was his car aimed at the street next to the pump:  colorless-crappy and apparently on fumes.

My heart went out to him.

I had a young niece.  I could probably…

If I couldn’t, he understood but man, if I could…

He took my number and address and thanked me profusely and God blessed me and I reached into my pocket and I gave him $80.

A lot.

As I watched him streak back to his car–I felt really good. I was really proud of myself at a time, when, for me, that was the exception of how I felt about me.

It didn’t occur to me until later that he didn’t put any gas in the car.

Maybe fifteen minutes later the South Side Road Show manager rang in to warn me to look out for a confidence man telling some boohoo story about his family and life flight. He’d taken them for thirty-five.

I miss the whole Road Show gang—they were very kind to a lonely Megs—Glenny, God Bless You!

It was my decision.  It was my money.

I never saw him again.  But I do remember him.

He preyed on something still alive and hopeful in me.

My heart wasn’t just a funky lonely hole and his short con only cost me $80 to show that to me at a time when I really needed to see it.

Sure, I felt stupid and foolish:  I had been taken. But every time I’ve looked back at it—I admire me in that moment.

I see me the way my Father sees me.  He likes me.  He thinks a lot of me.

Bill Johnson said in a sermon I heard recently that we can’t afford to think lesser thoughts of ourselves than heaven thinks.

I’d back-slidden right down to raw spinal-tap fluid—but I believe in heaven sitting next to Jesus–the One who knows me better than I do–on the best of reel:  that scene at Road Show Video when I got conned out of $80 American shows up.

I bet there are some of those moments where you blew it and someone abused you in some light—but your heart was right.

So—be blessed by it.  Share it, if you’re led.

Ostriches do put their heads in the sand.

But ostrich farmers say they do it in search of something to eat.